by Kurt Rohrs | Oct 24, 2025 | Opinion
By Kurt Rohrs and Amber McAffee |
As education has evolved over the last several years, Career and Technical Education (CTE) Programs have developed into critical pathways for a student’s future employment success. The learning of essential technical skills can directly impact a student’s ability to get placed in high-paying career jobs.
A CTE Program is defined as a pathway sequence of courses in a technical field that leads to a certificate, license, or degree. This is usually two or three year-long courses at the high school level. The expenses of a CTE program pathway sequence are supplemented by the Arizona Department of Education and administered by local Career and Technical Education Districts (CTEDs) set up by Arizona statute for this purpose. East Valley Institute of Technology (EVIT) has jurisdiction over programs in East Valley High Schools, including Chandler Unified School District (CUSD), which are referred to as “satellite” districts.
But this isn’t what is really happening.
A recent annual report from CUSD, mandated by the state of Arizona, revealed that less than one-third of CUSD students enroll in the next CTE course as required in their program sequence. This measurement is known as “persistence,” meaning that students are persistent in following a defined program sequence to its completion. It appears that CUSD students, with the tacit approval of their academic counselors, are simply using CTE courses as general education electives in their academic curriculum. It is quite likely that the other member satellite districts in the EVIT CTED are doing this as well.
This is not the intent of the CTE initiative and appears to be a systemic misuse of state funding designated for this purpose. Arizona state statute is very clear in that CTE funds are to be used to “supplement rather than supplant” funding on general education, already provided by base educational funding, to cover additional expenses incurred by spending on CTE program sequences.
This was one of the serious issues pointed out by an AZ State Auditor General report in 2024. CUSD initially refused any responsibility for the conclusions and corrective recommendations in that report but has since begun to acknowledge that they, as EVIT satellite districts, are under the same scrutiny as their parent CTED organization.
In addition, it appears that CUSD has systematically accumulated excess CTE expense reimbursements over several years to build a slush fund of $10,463,714 in their special purpose CTE fund account (Fund 596). This appears to be in direct conflict with state statutes as the district is only allowed reimbursements for specific CTE program sequence expenses. Actual CUSD reported CTE expenses last year were $8,789,583 against adjusted reimbursements (revenue) of $8,283,094. (CUSD Annual Financial Report, Fiscal Year 2024-25).
EVIT has re-written their Inter-Governmental Agreements (IGAs) to address these systematic abuses and to comply with recommendations from the Auditor General of the State of Arizona. Instead of unreviewed pass-through funding, EVIT put in place effective monitoring and an incentive structure to pass-through funding to direct attention toward meaningful improvement in persistence rates in CTE programs. In this way, they become what they were intended to be: career pathways for students to advance their post-secondary career plans. The proposed goal was set at a meager 30% minimum persistence rate in the new IGA. By comparison, persistence rates at the EVIT main campus, where that administration is far more focused on getting students to complete program sequences and placed in career jobs, is over 80%.
The response from CUSD has been disappointing. They seem to be focusing their efforts on a heavy public relations campaign to portray themselves as victims and characterize EVIT as the villain for holding them accountable for their failures in demonstrating effective program sequences. The CUSD rhetoric implies that, just by offering CTE classes as general electives, it is somehow equivalent to completing a program sequence. This is clearly insufficient and simply not what they were getting funded for.
None of the unfavorable persistence data was ever presented to the CUSD Governing Board, until specifically requested recently, who were kept in the dark about the CUSD CTE program insufficiencies. The district administration let the board down and concealed their lack of performance on persistence measures central to CTE program success.
Instead, the administration orchestrated a PR stunt at a recent CUSD Board meeting using about 20 students and staff to make false insinuations that programs would be shut down and teachers would be laid off. This seemed to be a sordid attempt to generate public sympathy for their cause. The truth is that no such proposal has ever been considered that would cut programs or staff. The district has millions of dollars in reserve to cover any unexpected shortfalls. It is appalling to realize that vulnerable students were groomed with misinformation and then used in this unethical stunt.
It is far past time for CUSD to drop the gamesmanship and lawfare, accept the oversight given to the EVIT CTED by statute, and to comply with all statutory requirements, performance expectations, and financial controls they are responsible for.
Kurt Rohrs is a Governing Board Member for the Chandler Unified School District. Amber McAffee is the President of the EVIT Governing Board. The views expressed here are the authors’ personal opinions and do not represent the views of their respective Governing Boards.
by Kurt Rohrs | Sep 26, 2022 | Opinion
By Kurt Rohrs |
Public education funding accounts for nearly $11 billion of Arizona’s $18 billion state budget. Considering this cost, taxpayers should have a clear perception about the return on this massive investment.
We can define the purpose of public education as the process of producing capable adults who can effectively participate in the economic activity of the community. This puts the focus on developing students who can be productive after they leave our public education system and identifies the return on investment for substantial state spending.
The economic benefit of Career and Technical Education (CTE) should then become the primary objective of each public education institution that is funded by the taxpayers of the state. The goal of CTE should be the attainment of professional degrees and technical certificates that demonstrate proficiency in various career-related specialties that allow students to attain beneficial employment.
There are several public education institutions that share the responsibility for preparing our students to be productive adults.
1. Pre-K-12 District and Charter Public Schools
Some Examples:
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- District Schools: Mesa Unified, Chandler Unified, and Tucson Unified are the largest in the state.
- Charter Schools: American Leadership Academy, Legacy Traditional, Archway (Great Hearts)
- Online Schools: Sequoia, Portable Practical Educational Preparation (PPEP), Arizona Connections Academy
2. Community Colleges
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- Maricopa Community Colleges and Pima Community Colleges are the largest.
3. Technical Schools
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- East Valley Institute of Technology (EVIT), West Maricopa Education Center (West-MEC), and Pima County Joint Technical Education District (Pima-JTED) are the largest.
4. Colleges and Universities
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- Arizona State University, University of Arizona, and Northern Arizona University are the three public universities.
Coordination and Collaboration
Students often use several of these institutions in their educational journey but many of the programs overlap in their requirements. However, many students have also found that their credits earned by completing courses in one institution are not readily transferable to another institution, resulting in a student having to repeat classes they have already passed. This unnecessarily delays their attainment of educational goals and adds additional costs.
There does not appear to be any good reason for this uncoordinated approach to public education. It also serves to harm students and discourage their educational progress.
While some institutions do attempt to collaborate for the better benefit of students, the effort is spotty and uncoordinated. In a recent presentation to the EVIT Board of Directors, Chief Academic Officer Ronda Doolen demonstrated the chaotic approach to the transfer of credits from one institution to another. There is clearly no consistency and no universal process for doing so leaving students, as the clients of the system, to be served poorly.
Universal Portability, Student-Centric Education
One solution is to have state level certifications for certain classes that can be applied to each student’s education transcript and universally accepted by any public education institution in the state. This makes a student’s academic achievements “portable” and shifts the focus from “institution-centric” to “student–centric” in order to better benefit students.
One current model is the Dual-Credit platforms that are now in place between some high schools and local community colleges. However, the programs are usually governed by specific Inter-Governmental Agreements (IGAs) at the school or district level. But the programs are typically difficult to navigate and there is no guarantee of universal acceptance of credits that can be applied at any Arizona public school.
An example would be a basic college level English course (“English 101”) that can be universally accredited as fulfilling any higher education requirement. However, this basic course typically has different course titles depending on the institution and may or may not be accepted at a community college or one of the Arizona universities—depending on the whims of that particular institution. This basic course should have one course title, one course number, and one course description in use by every public education institution in the state of Arizona and be fully portable between them.
Other courses that should have universal accreditation would be Basic History, Civics, Basic Math and Science Courses, Basic Arts and Humanities courses, and Foreign Languages. It would be far more efficient and far less costly to have these courses taken at accredited high school or community college institutions instead of at the university level.
Follow the Money, Institutional Self-Interest, and Territorialism
Many of the roadblocks to a more efficient and service-oriented approach to public education revolve around funding. However, we must first recognize that most education funding is ultimately derived from taxpayers. These taxpayers do not typically have much of an interest as to which institution receives their tax dollars as compared to their more beneficial interest that their funds are spent efficiently and not wasted on ineffective or duplicative efforts.
Unfortunately, there is an institutional self-interest in how funds are allocated to them by the state. No one wants to have their budget cut. This can lead to a bias in how universal course credits are supported that can run counter to the best interests of students, for whom these institutions were originally created to serve.
An example would be that there is little practical justification for our universities to offer general education courses that are also taught at community colleges, and some high schools, at a fraction of the cost to students and taxpayers. Wouldn’t it far more useful to have highly paid university professors spending their time teaching advanced courses that could only be offered at the university?
There does not seem to be any evidence that an English 101 course better serves a student if it is taken at a university as compared to a community college or even a good high school. This one single reform should significantly reduce the cost of education for students and their parents, who help pay their tuition, even though it may threaten the territory of certain institutional “empires” that have built up at taxpayer expense.
Re-thinking Public Education, Some Conclusions
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- The goal of public education should be to develop productive adults.
- Public education should then be more focused on Career and Technical Education in order to have real value for students and the community.
- Public education must be re-oriented to be “student-centric” and less institution-centric” to be more efficient and cost effective.
- Course credits in higher education should be “portable” and universally accepted by all taxpayer-funded public education institutions.
Kurt Rohrs is a candidate for the Chandler Unified School District Governing Board. You can find out more about his campaign here.
